DEPECHE MODE LOSES ITS GRIP ON NO. 1 SPOT

Chalk up another seesaw week on the nation's top albums chart, which saw Depeche Mode's Songs of Faith and Devotion fall to No. 6 after just one week as champ.

Thanks to the sudden slip, the blockbuster soundtrack from the movie The Bodyguard again is No. 1. Two other older albums also rebounded, with Kenny G's Breathless rising from No. 3 to No. 2 and Eric Clapton's Unplugged moving from 4 to 3.

But newer albums also made noise, with two titles cracking the Top 5: the Spin Doctors' Pocket Full of Kryptonite, which leaped from No. 6 to No. 4; and rapper L.L. Cool J's 14 Shots to the Dome, which blew onto the Top 20 at an impressive No. 5.

The week also saw surprising sales surges that pushed several older records back into the Top 20, including the Aladdin soundtrack (back up to No. 12). Also making a resurgence: Sade's slinky Love Deluxe, which popped back up to No. 14 after being out of the Top 20 for months.

There was less action on the pop singles charts, where the Top 5 songs remained unchanged for the second straight week. The current logjam now has kept Snow's Informer at No. 1 for six weeks, with Silk's Freak Me still unable to move up from No. 2 in the pop rankings despite being No. 1 for weeks on the r&b; list. Also stalled are Dr. Dre's Nuthin' But a "G" Thang (still No. 3), Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing (still No. 4) and Jade's Don't Walk Away (still No. 5).

However, this week saw good moves by four songs that should emerge as the next core group to dominate action in the Top 5. Leading this new pack is the Vanessa Williams-Brian McKnight ballad Love Is, which zipped from No. 8 to No. 6 on the pop list and repeated at No. 1 in the adult contemporary rankings. Making the biggest jump was SWV's danceable I'm So Into You, which leaped from No. 16 to No. 9 on the pop chart and repeated at No. 2 on the r&b; singles list.